


but your mouth can do it better

by ganzei



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blow Jobs, Co-Dependency, M/M, Mild Angst, Oral Sex, companionable insomnia, dumb horny virgins clumsily navigating their sexually tense friendship, overly self-introspective gansey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 11:31:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganzei/pseuds/ganzei
Summary: Something’s changed in the room, but you won’t acknowledge it. Not aloud. Words aren’t a language you speak well together, anyway.





	but your mouth can do it better

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Alice, who showed me what a strange constellation they all were.

Ronan isn’t asleep, because he never sleeps around you. You’re lost in a moment of companionable insomnia, you and your many pieces to a tiny cardboard town, he and his erratic beats with only the rare chunk of lyrics impossible to make out. It’s no wonder he can’t sleep, you’ve told him, when he listens to that every night. The most eloquent response he’s ever given you is a finger in the air.

Apart from the faint pulse of his music through his headphones, everything is quiet. He has his cheek pressed to the floor, eyes shut, but you know he hasn’t drifted off by the faint crease between his brows. Impossibly long dark eyelashes hover over his cheekbones, which have always reminded you a bit of the spindle on the spinning wheel from Sleeping Beauty, a film you never gave much thought to until you met him. His face beckons you, calls you to prick your finger against something so sharp you’re bound to draw blood. Some nights you nearly give in.

This feels like one of those nights. You’re over-tired; it’s been almost forty-eight hours exactly since you last slept, an uncommon feat accomplished only because it’s been such a hot week. You’ve both been suffocating. Even now, the two of you are only wearing shorts. Yours are a light shade of orange, technically swimming trunks, and his are black ripped denim, formerly jeans before Ronan took a knife to them. You want to touch the frayed edges along his knees, twist them around your finger, pull at them and watch more fabric unravel up his thighs.

Yes, you’re too tired. Much too tired.

You mean to return to your miniature Henrietta and finish the new street sign post you’ve been working on, but his tattoo catches your eye again. It seems new additions never fail to appear, things you somehow never noticed before, and this time it’s a snake curled around his left shoulder blade. Its eyes scrutinize you with an intensity befitting Ronan himself. A warning. Venomous. Your fingers move before you realize it, brushing overheated skin so lightly you think it might be a miracle for him to feel it. 

But he does.

Those eyes flick open, blue blue _blue_ scanning your features, searching. You offer no explanation, just tap your fingertips more firmly against the face of that snake. Let me, you don’t say. And he does, of course. He turns those eyes away once more, rests his head, only a grunt escaping him. Trust.

This is an opportunity. One you don’t often receive —  haven’t received since this tattoo was fresh, and he needed you just to keep it moisturized, help it heal, sensitive skin in your hands and his pink cheeks burned into your memory — and your curiosity is a lustful creature starved of precisely this, more and more of Ronan Lynch’s skin gliding under your palm. The planes of his back tense everywhere you touch, so you travel slowly. You pause over every muscle. You wait until that tension relaxes. You move again. Again, again, again, more, until you know each dip in his spine, every line of his tattoo, then the curves of his ribs.

It’s here you move even slower, for this is uncharted territory. You’ve mapped out his back before, but never have you gone quite so far, your fingers ghosting along where his side meets his stomach. He’s barely breathing, you realize, and your gaze snaps to his expression — blank, eyes shut tight, lips parted just slightly enough for you to notice.

Something’s changed in the room, but you won’t acknowledge it. Not aloud. Words aren’t a language you speak well together, anyway.

He’s going to stop you any second, probably. You can’t imagine how he wouldn’t. Months and months ago, when you helped him shave his head, when you explored his ink-stained skin with lotion in your hand and amazement in your eyes, he’d been quick to get away. Sometimes after only a minute or two, sometimes after so long you’d swear he was going to let you touch him forever. You could never guess at his limits, always unpredictable. But it always ended.

Certainly always before you got this far. You stroke up his ribs, shift to his arm, trace along the tense curve of his bicep. His shoulder feels so stiff that you linger over it, squeeze. Relax, you don’t say. And he does, just a little, enough to encourage you. Submission.

There’s something powerful licking through your veins, waking you up.

His neck. You know it’s sensitive. You’ve seen him shiver when you lean in too closely and breathe on it, always accidental. This time isn’t an accident, though — the fingertips following that final path of his tattoo up the back of his neck are quite deliberate. He tenses again, so you spread your fingers, curl them with hardly any pressure, the weakest grip.

His next exhale is rough, audible.

You pause. There are things to weigh, here. Actions have consequences and you haven’t been giving them any consideration at all. What does this mean in the long-run, you touching him? What is the significance behind each touch, behind his little reactions? What will this mean for the two of you, for a friendship you value over everything else on earth? He would kill for you, and you would die for him. This isn’t something meant to be played with, Richard Gansey III.

Ronan rolls over, one hand hastily sliding his headphones off. His ribs press against your thigh, his bare skin against your knee sending an unexpected thrill through your body, sparks of lightning in your abdomen. His eyes are the worst, however, or perhaps the best — you don’t know how to interpret the look he’s giving you.

He’s breathing hard, you suddenly notice. Oh, and so are you. The hand meant to be resting on the back of his neck has found his collarbone, pushes against it without your consent, as if your body is telling his to remain exactly where it is. You hesitate, begin to draw back, but his fingers lock around your wrist.

Touch me, he doesn’t say. And you do.

Your fingers smooth over his chest, thumb brushing over a nipple. He exhales in something bordering on a gasp, tilts his head back so abruptly that his head bangs against the floor. A smile rides the corner of your mouth, and when he sees it, whatever he finds there makes him look all the hungrier.

Hungry. That’s exactly what he is. Starved of something, of this, of touch, of you? Or perhaps you have it backwards. Because you’re eager, you’re so eager to stroke him a dozen more times, until his jaw clenches with the force of stifling whatever noise you can tell he’s trying to hide. You’re so eager to drag your nails gently down his stomach, just enough pressure to watch his abs flex, tense, move under your touch. You’re so eager to touch him, this boy who shattered right in your hand and who you’ve been trying so hard to rebuild. You’re so eager, it's as if you're the one who’s been starving this whole time.

You stop at his waistband. It’s easy to see how worked up he is, even if you hadn’t already eyed the front of his shorts — his chest is practically heaving with the force of his breaths, and he’s looking at you as if he’d like to eat you alive.

Power. Usually you try to give it away when you’re so aware of how much you have. You’re uncomfortable with it, sometimes, the privilege you hold. The senator’s son, the rich kid, the white heterosexual Aglionby student with his trust fund size already foretelling a picture perfect future; you’re not really big enough to fill these shoes, you’re just an act you put on so the rest of the world is satisfied. Congratulations, Gansey, you’re exactly what we expected. You’re exactly what you were made to be.

This feels different. This isn’t power you’re choking on, this isn’t the kind you don’t deserve, this isn’t the sort your upbringing has pushed onto you. This is when you bought that Camaro, this is when you asked Ronan to teach you how to fight, this is when you touch Ronan a little too long, a little too much. This is selfish.

This is entirely you.

You lean over him, shifting to lay your palm against the cool floor beside him. Your hand rests beside his hip and you along his other side, framing him, keeping him here. His expression remains unreadable beyond the desire there, and part of you doesn’t want to speak, lest you ruin the moment, break this spell.

Nonetheless, you murmur, “Unbutton them.”

You’re not sure if it’s the rough quality to your voice that stills him or the order itself. He stares at you as if he’s seeing you for the first time, all wide eyes and slack jaw. It’s strangely encouraging, so you lean in a little further, pinning him with your gaze. You dare him to make you repeat yourself. You aren’t his teacher, this isn’t authority he wants to resist — you’re Gansey, he’s Ronan, this is the two-headed creature you’ve always been.

Ronan unbuttons his shorts. Not once does he look away, holding your eye contact as though he’s daring you just as much as you’re challenging him. That’s the way it’s always been between you, hasn’t it? You shove each other around and push, push, push through walls and limits just as often as you hold each other up.

“Unzip,” you say, “and take them off.” His fingers linger there already, predicting your next command, so they follow easily, quicker than he was the first time. He drags his shorts down his hips and wiggles out of them. It isn’t an easy feat when he refuses to look away from you and when you won’t move to give him space, but he makes do. Soon enough he’s only covered by the thin layer of his boxer briefs.

Already there’s a wet circle staining the fabric. You press your palm against his stomach, and his abs flex beneath your touch. His skin feels almost uncomfortably hot — Ronan has always been prone to over-heating, to the point of refusing to wear coats during the winter if the temperature is even slightly above freezing. But this, for him to get so hot for you, for him to be so hard and wanting just for you…

“Quit fucking thinking and touch me,” he says, barely above a growl.

“Jesus,” you murmur. Somewhere between exasperation and arousal, you meet his eyes. You can’t believe you have to chastise him at all right now, given the circumstances. “Will you give me a moment? It isn’t as if I’ve ever done this before.”

In answer, he rolls his hips into the air just once, his cock nearly brushing your arm. His stare has only gotten more intense as he repeats himself, low, “Touch me, Gansey.”

Your own cock had already been interested, but it’s certainly all the more attentive now.

“You truly think you’re in the position to be giving orders, Lynch?” Somehow you keep your tone cool even as your fingers dip under his waistband. You curl your fingers around him, loose, but that is enough to hold Ronan’s tongue. His head hits the floor with another thump. You can’t restrain the smirk riding the corner of your lips.

Curious, fascinated, you slide your hand further, stroke the head of his cock with your thumb in one gentle motion. This proves to be Ronan’s undoing; his back arches up from the floor, an exhale escaping him in the form of a quiet gasp.

“I asked you a question,” you say. You know it’s cruel, maybe, but for all the hell he gives you, few realize just how often you give it right back. And if anything, that’s only strengthened your bond all the further, this ability to drive each other insane then pull each other right back from the edge of that cliff. Like brothers, you once thought — but in hindsight that was obviously a tragically ignorant label to even consider.

This has always been so much more complicated than that.

“Gansey,” he rasps, another faint movement of his hips drawing your attention back to him. His eyes are squeezed shut, but his lips part with the force of his breaths.

You aren’t moved, in command. A king. “Who’s giving the orders?”

A muscle ticks in his jaw. Unquestioning obedience and Ronan Lynch have a complex relationship, but you have faith in him. At least in his loyalty to you, the depth of it, the intensity behind it that sometimes surprises even you.

“You,” Ronan says, hushed.

Fire burns white hot in your veins, encourages your hand up and down, up and down his length, setting a rhythm you’ve performed on yourself many more times than you care to admit. For every pump of his cock, there’s a new half-stifled gasp, and for every stroke over the slit, there’s a strangled moan. He wants so badly to be quiet that he bites his lip, hard enough for you to worry about seeing blood.

And so you say, “Let me hear you.”

He shivers, gasping out a breath as though he hadn’t expected you to speak again. “Come on,” you coax, smooth as honey. You squeeze on this next stroke, and the groan that escapes him now is so deep, so low even your toes curl with pleasure. Making Ronan lose himself, forget himself, forget the world and every pain he’s ever experienced within it — now that’s a drug you could certainly grow addicted to.

“Fuck,” he grits out when you quicken the pace. He presses his wrist against his own mouth, teeth worrying at the leather bands there. Despite his best attempts, though, you pull another half-stifled moan from him.

“That’s it.” It’s unbearably erotic; the noises he makes against his will, his flushed face, the way his abs flex and tense under your influence. When he calls your name, a warning and a promise, it’s much too soon. You want to make this last, you need to savor it. If you don’t, who knows when it may happen again? If it ever will?

So you stop.

Ronan slams his palm against the floor, chest heaving. “Fuck, fuck, Gansey, what the hell?”

Amused in spite of yourself, you lean back on your palms, watching him glower. “What do you mean? I didn’t say you could come yet.”

He stares at you like you’re a stranger, like you’re the devil, like you’re God. It only broadens your smile.

Whatever he sees in it intensifies his stare. After a beat, Ronan rolls onto his stomach, twisting round to face you. There’s a determined set to his jaw that fills you with dread and excitement alike. With Ronan, regardless of how many years you’ve spent together, you never truly know what to expect.

His hands find the button of your shorts, popping them open with ease. Your eyebrows twitch upward, but he doesn’t pause, unzipping your fly like a man on a mission. When he tugs at your shorts, insistent, you lift your hips up, allowing him to slide both your shorts and boxers off at once.

Only now does he hesitate. Freezing would be a better word for it, his eyes widening by a fraction.

“Ronan?” you prompt, fingers twitching with the desire to run them over his shaven head reassuringly.

“So that’s where your fucking growth spurt went,” he replies. “Fuck, Gansey. You could’ve told me I’ve been living with a fucking horse.”

You’re torn between amusement and pride and a little bit of sheepishness, fighting the urge to preen or conceal yourself from his scrutiny altogether. “Are you going to talk or touch? We can take a break, if you’re too overwhelm—”

But he interrupts you with a hand against your chest, shoving you onto your back. While you laugh, he crawls up your body, palms on your legs, a familiar look in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. The determination blazing there swallows your laughter even faster than the way he squeezes your thighs.

Before you can think to reassure him that he doesn’t have to go this far, he’s leaning in, hot breath brushing over your cock and making it twitch. It’s a terrible idea, but you squeeze your eyes shut, the anticipation building so thickly within you that it’s bordering on painful. You can’t remember how many times you’ve admired the curves of his lips, how many times you’ve wondered how soft they may be, marveled over the sheer perfection of that sinful mouth. You don’t like comparing Niall Lynch to God himself, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

Ronan murmurs your name, a soft thing, like he’s waking you from a dream. “Eyes on me.”

When you open your eyes, that’s when he decides to lick a long stripe all along the length of your cock. The sensation is a punch of pleasure right in the pit of your stomach, an explosion in every nerve ending, and you see now why his head hit the floor earlier, because yours is already so dizzy you can’t quite see straight.

“Okay, porn star,” Ronan says, low and smug. That’s when you realize the unbelievable, erotic feeling coursing through you found its release in a humiliatingly loud moan. Fantastic. It’s hard to find the time to compose yourself, though, when Ronan’s leaning back in, an unyielding artist of torture, pressing his tongue against you again and wrapping his lips around the very tip, sucking like you’ve taken something important from him and he’s dying to get it back.

You hear it in real time now, the long groan escaping you. You can’t help it, you can’t quiet down, it’s impossible when Ronan’s sliding lower, lower down the length of you, taking more and more of you in. He’s clumsy, imperfect, but you expect nothing less. And he’s always been a quick learner when he puts his mind to it — everywhere his mouth doesn’t touch, Ronan’s hand helps with a steady grip. Every bit of suction, every pump has you moaning, shuddering, your hands gentle where you grip the sides of his head.

“God, yes, Ronan, that’s it, you’re so good,” you hear yourself murmuring. It’s an out of body experience, like watching yourself through a fog of pleasure. “You’re so good for me, Ronan, just like that.”

You have a brief thought that maybe you should be embarrassed for your idiotic little ramblings, but then Ronan groans. The vibrations shoot directly up your dick, and you gasp, clutching his head more firmly. He chokes around you, sputters.

Alarmed, you release him. “Are you okay?” you pant, but he’s already batting your hands away before you can stop him. His eyes have teared up a bit from the choking, yet still he sucks, quickening his pace as if he’s only gotten all the more determined. You moan his name, clinging to his shoulders instead, all desperate squeezes and hushed praise.

You’re close. Ronan’s taking you even deeper, gags on you again like he’s doing it on purpose, and god, that realization does things to you. He’s trying to slide you into his throat, to get as much of you as possible, groaning around your cock with every filthy thing you murmur next — _that feels so good, you’re such a good boy, you like this, don’t you Ronan?_  — and you’re so close.

But it isn’t enough, this isn’t enough, you need him right here with you.

“Touch yourself for me,” you rasp out between one breath and the next. Ronan responds with another sound, this one more of a growl that you feel in your very bones. He shifts, never once taking his mouth off of you, even as you watch him wrap his free hand around his own cock. He matches the pace without you needing to ask, and the sight is everything, Ronan’s gorgeous lips around you and his expression etched with concentration and his hips thrusting against his own hand. A divine image, a glorious rhythm, it’s building on and on; it’s so much. It’s too much.

“Ronan, Ronan.” It’s a warning alongside your frantic squeezing of his shoulders, hips twitching as you try to get away from him. He shudders in response, taking you in far enough to choke again, and it’s the abrupt knowledge that he’s just come that finally sends you, too, over the edge, tumbling into something celestial.

By the time your vision returns and the ringing in your ears has faded, you’re aware of Ronan’s weight on top of you, enough of his body stretched over you for his head to rest right here against your chest. Your fingers dance over his buzzcut as you both catch your breath. He’s heavy, but something about his weight comforts you, steadies a trembling concern in you that you hadn’t realized was there before. The warmth of him threatens to let you drift right off to sleep, in fact.

“Wow,” you laugh. He hums in reply, non-committal, so you prompt further, “Ronan?”

He lifts his head. Chin on your chest, he gazes at you, something so unguardedly soft unraveled in his expression that it wrenches the breath from your lungs, sends your heart skittering out from beneath your ribcage, right out into the vulnerable open.

“Glad you didn’t stick that thing in my ass,” comes his grumble of a reply, so obviously full of good-natured humor that you laugh harder than you mean to, harder than the joke truly warrants. When your hand slides down his head to stroke over the top of his spine, he doesn’t even protest.

You wonder if he can see your heart standing here between you, doing jumping jacks and cartwheels all in an effort to get him to notice how much you wanted exactly this.

In an intimate hush, you try, “You mean I’m not allowed to do that next time? Don’t tell me you’re afraid, Ronan Lynch.”

He smiles. And oh, it’s a real thing, the kind that makes you ache, the kind he aimed at you for a stupid wisecrack you don’t remember making that very first day you met, and you want it to bury you alive. “Go to sleep, dumbass. You look like you’re gonna pass out any second.”

“What about you?”

“Not tired.”

You raise your eyebrows, disbelieving. He returns your stare, easy as anything. He’s good at staring, at silence, at refusing basic needs; you both know he’ll win this game.

“Stay with me, at least,” you murmur, extending your palm toward him. He looks at your hand, at you; impossibly, those soft eyes get softer. He presses his palm against yours, intertwines his fingers with your own in an act so unbearably romantic that you both laugh at the absurdity of it.

Then his mouth finds yours, lips hot to the touch — he’s burning you alive, you’re on fire, _you’re on fire_. Your breath trembles through its next startled exhale, free hand digging into the hard angles of his back to drag him closer, as close as possible. He kisses you like he means to worship you, with every gentle bone in him, like you’re both fifteen years old again and too close and too high on the magic of this, the connection between the two of you.

And you, you kiss him like you’re terrified of losing him.

“I’ll stay,” he says here, against your mouth. You would murmur a thank you if you could say anything at all, but instead you press your forehead to his and try to shut your mind off. You don’t know how to explain that you mean more than this, that you want his softness to stay, the boy you met so long ago, the gentle vulnerable _magical_ creature haunting his features at this very moment. It would only end in an ugly fight if you tried to, anyway.

“Okay,” you agree. And while what’s left of Ronan curls his body around yours, you think it’s your turn to dream him a world; one that deserves him, one that treats him tenderly, one in which his best friend can look him in the eye and summon the courage to tell him exactly how you feel about him. Maybe someday. Maybe soon.

Maybe when morning comes.


End file.
